The Gray Mask Part 11

She pressed her lips together. Blood congested her cheeks.

He shook her more determinedly.

"Answer. You have to answer that."

Her lips parted.

"Take your hands away."

"Bella! You can't keep quiet. See how you're racking me! Answer."

Somewhere in the house a bell commenced to jangle, and continued, irritatingly, insistently.

She grasped his wrists and pushed his hands aside.

"You've gone rather too far," she whispered.

"I've a right. Answer. Was there an arrangement? Did you expect him here to-night while I struggled in town?"

The discordant jangling appeared to enter his consciousness. He sprang back, listening.

"That might--By gad, if it were!"

"It's the telephone," she said, "in the library."

"Why isn't it answered? Oh, yes. You might have kept Thompson at least.

Let it ring. I shan't go down."

"A doctor!" she said scornfully.

She arose with an effort. The lace of the mauve dressing-gown exaggerated the difficulty of her breathing. His glance, which took all this in, was not wholly without contrition.

"Answer it," she said. "I shan't fly from the house to any man's arms while you are in the library."

He half stretched out his hand to her, but the appealing motion resolved itself into a gesture of despair. He walked out and descended to the library.

After a moment the discordant bell was silent. The murmur of his voice, moment by moment interrupted, arose through the quiet house to this single lighted chamber.

She stood for a time by the door, listening. Once or twice she placed her hand above her heart. At last she turned back and gazed through the narrow door to the next room where a yellow ribbon of illumination from the reading light draped itself across her bed. Her face set in the cruel distortion that precedes tears, but at the sound of her husband's returning footsteps it resumed a semblance of control. No tears fell.

"Well?" she asked.

His face was haggard, confessing greater suspense than before.

"The Hansons' butler," he said. "I--I'm afraid the old lady's off this time. Redding had told him to get me. They sent the chauffeur some time ago with a fast car. Man said he ought to be here."

He paused, searching her face in an agony of indecision.

"Well?" she repeated.

"Bella," he went on. "Won't you tell me? Won't you promise? That old woman--for years she's depended on me. I could do more for her than Redding. I might help her--a little--"

"Of course you'll go," she said.

He spread his arms.

"How can I go, knowing nothing, imagining everything. Tell me. Was there an arrangement with that beast? Bella, he'd been drinking. He's unfit--"

She raised her hand.

"You only make matters worse. John, you've done your best to make me despise you, to urge me to Freddy Treving. For, understand, I do care for him--a great deal. There's been nothing really wrong, but evidently you're not content it should stop at friendship. We can settle what's to be done to-morrow. Meantime--you've put me in such a position! What am I to say?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Go to your work, I've no arrangement with Freddy. I don't expect him here. If he came I shouldn't let him in. Your honor is safe enough in my hands for to-night. Does that satisfy you?"

Her tone had a merciless lashing quality. He bowed his head before it.

His words stumbled.

"I trust you, Bella. I'm sorry."

"Then go. In the morning--"

She waved her hand vaguely.

"We'll arrange--something."

His eyes begged, but she offered nothing more. So he went out, closing the door softly behind him.

Almost immediately he heard the sound of a motor. He couldn't find his hat. The front door bell rang, and, s.n.a.t.c.hing an ancient cap from the table, he opened the door. No one stood in the verandah, but the glare of powerful automobile headlights blinded him.

"You're Mrs. Hanson's chauffeur?" he called.

An indistinct voice came back affirmatively. Randall caught the word "hurry." Therefore he ran down the steps, and, his eyes still blinded by the glare, stepped into a large runabout and settled himself by the driver.

They swung away at a breakneck speed which before long swept Randall's cap from his head and forced him to cling with both hands to the side of the car.

The landscape tore up through the glare and disappeared in a dense and terrifying confusion of darkness.

"Man!" he shouted. "This is dangerous. There's no point in such haste."

He managed to turn, but the other had protected himself against the cold by rolling his collar up about his face and drawing his slouch hat down to meet it.

"Slower!" Randall commanded.

The car swerved. The other cried hoa.r.s.ely:

"Look out! Hold tight!"